Sussex Playwrights Reviews: The Acme Dating and Detective Agency

Written by Timothy Coakley
Directed by Murray Hecht
 
Possible spoiler alert!
 
Neil James as Charles de Vere, successful, confident, yet desperate, looking for love and about to step into the strange new world of the dating agency. Tabitha Wild as Annabelle Kensington is elegant, slinky, a poised cut-glass inquisitor filleting him in seconds.
 
But it isn’t what you think it is. Nothing is. The writing’s twisty and turny, characters playing characters, and just when you think you’ve got the measure of it – you haven’t. Snappy and pacey direction and two assured, versatile performances blend polished banter, messy truths and confiding asides to audience, the pair dancing round each other playing layered games with what’s real, what isn’t.
 
Pay attention, because in these glimpses of a relationship in flux, reveal after reveal, unpredictable shifts in accent, class and sexuality, nothing’s fixed. The effect is clever, surprising and in the end, poignant.
 
At the Latest Music Bar 30/5 – 1/6
 
Philippa Hammond
 
 
 
 
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